Retirement: Why You Need More Than Just a Dream

Unless we’ve been taught to plan for retirement, we lose the big picture in the midst of the daily grind.

I’m excited to announce that in January 2016, I will be releasing my new book Retire Inspired. Because I’m so passionate about the information and can’t wait for you to radically improve your retirement future, I want to share some of the content early. This is the first excerpt, taken from the Introduction, and it will challenge you to start dreaming and planning for your dream retirement:

Since I began working with Dave, I’ve been a financial coach to some of the biggest names in Hollywood, professional sports, and entertainment. I’ve given guidance to complex financial decisions as well as fundamental money problems. These years of working “kneecap to kneecap” with people from all walks of life have taught me one fundamental truth: most of these folks lack a plan. The necessity of a plan sounds simple, but it is the one glaring omission that so many of us seem to overlook.

I’ve travelled the country enough to know that it is full of driven, honest, and hardworking people. But most of us are simply consumed with the task right in front of us. Think about it: We study hard, do our best, and get good grades in school. We move on to college and then into a good job. We move up the ladder and gain more responsibility and earn more money. It’s the American way.

The problem is that while we wake up, rinse, and repeat this process for our entire career, we forget one important thing: working is not the end result! We work now so we don’t have to work later! Unless we’ve been taught to plan for retirement (and few of us have been taught!), we lose the big picture in the midst of the daily grind.

Just working hard won’t automatically result in a great retirement. I heard former NFL head coach and ESPN analyst Herm Edwards say that a dream without a plan is a wish. And just wishing you could retire someday and travel the world doesn’t mean it will happen. You need a plan to get there!

Have-To Versus Want-To

When you have a plan, good things happen. I met a young man who came to me for financial advice. He wasn’t a CEO of a huge company or a lottery winner, but the financial numbers on the paper he’d given me were too high for a man his age. I don’t meet many people who are that successful that young, so I leaned a bit closer and asked, “I’m sorry, so what did you say you do for a living?”

“Oh,” he smiled, beginning to understand my confusion, “I’m retired now so I pretty much do whatever I want to do for work.”

His words hung in the air—“Whatever I want to do.” It was a game-changing moment for me. Up to that point in my career, I had believed that retirement was an age. But this man was retired in his early forties. That didn’t happen by accident. It happened because he had been working smart, following a consistent plan from the time he started his first job in his twenties.

As a result, his life was no longer full of the “have-tos.” He could turn his attention to the “want-tos.”

No matter your age, you can get to that “want-to” phase of your life. You can experience your dream retirement. You can do all those things you thought you’d never have time to do. But it is going to take work. It will take some focus and some vision, but let me tell you, the effort will be worth it. That’s what having an inspired retirement is all about!